Look Who’s Talking

Holcombe Waller finds some dark pleasure in a painful business.

IMAGE: Kava Gorna

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“I just want to talk less and less,” says Holcombe Waller.
“It’s like, conversations walk by and I have all these ideas of things
to say, and I just sit there and let them go because I’m like, I don’t
really need to say that. And the same thing’s been happening with
music.”

Despite this, Waller
engaged in a long exchange last week via phone and email (during his
vacation in Hawaii), and finally, in person Saturday afternoon at an
East Burnside coffeehouse. Happily, his mindset hasn’t kept Waller from
at last releasing Into the Dark Unknown, the long-anticipated follow-up album to 2005’s masterful Troubled Times.

Waller’s not exactly been idle in the interim. The Portland songwriter has been busy staging the show Into the Dark Unknown: The Hope Chest,
which created most of the material collected on the new CD. He
performed the show not only in Portland and Seattle (it was a joint
commission of PICA and Seattle’s On the Boards), but New York,
Anchorage, San Francisco and foreign locales like Zagreb and Croatia (he
plays exotic Bozeman, Mont., next month). Before that was another
multimedia production, Patty (Heart) Townes, featuring Waller as
an inebriated angel performing surprising, string-laden arrangements of
songs by Townes Van Zandt and Patty Griffin.

Making a record was a
more difficult process. Early passes at recording the new material
featured a sparser instrumental approach than the lush sound of Waller’s
present release. A delicate early version of the title song posted
online (recorded on my own KBOO radio show, thank you very much) drew
unexpected interest from celebrated singer Antony Hegarty, who hipped
others to Waller’s work and even offered to help come up with a running
order. “And I don’t know what the hell my problem is,” confesses Waller,
“’cause, looking back, oh my god—what an opportunity that would have
been to have him sequence the record.”

But Waller’s
aforementioned ambivalence about bringing another collection to
market—fueled by a skepticism of (and distaste for) the music
industry—intervened. “I worked really hard making Troubled Times
and then trying to self-release and promote it, and it got really good
reviews, but sold maybe 2,000 copies. So I wasn’t itching to jump into
another vastly money-losing enterprise. And I was really excited by all
the support I was getting and how much fun I was having, frankly, with
other projects.”

Waller digs in and
lets loose: “It’s like, here’s this one world that’s completely
embracing me—not only embracing me, but funding me. I’d get these
grants, I’d execute the work, I’d perform the work, promoters would
promote it, audiences got to see it. Whereas in the music world, I make
these albums, no labels express any interest, no one really avails
themselves to show up to help do anything...There’s this whole world of
performing arts that’s like, ‘Yes, yes, come over here,’ and then
there’s the music world which is, like, a bunch of assholes who I don’t
like anyway, and they drink and smoke and they’re out of shape and just,
like, reject me. And I thought, well, that’s dumb, I don’t want to
sleep with these people anyway.”

Eventually, though,
with the help of his simpatico ensemble, the Healers—anchored by
longtime friend and collaborator Ben Landsverk—Waller saw his way
through to finishing Troubled Times’ troubled follow-up. Audible
on the record is the personal and musical growth that took place during
the time it took to complete the project. The minimal but effective
production touches of Times—tape manipulation, treated sounds and
a soupcon of electronica that subtly evoke the lyrics’ often bleak
outlook, suggesting a porous boundary between the singer and the world
outside him. By contrast, the new disc features a warmer, natural, live
sound. (Indeed, four tracks are concert recordings, including two from
the Doug Fir.) The voice, both literal and literary, is not as fragile.
It sounds as though those boundaries have been repaired, and the healed
artist can now focus his compassion—and his Healers—outward. Even if he
doesn’t feel like saying much.

SEE IT: Holcombe Waller releases Into the Dark Unknown on Sunday, Feb. 20, at Alberta Rose Theater. 7:30 pm. $20. All ages (minors must be accompanied by parent).